


How Not To Telepathically Bond With Your Human: A Lived Case Study

by skatzaa



Category: Original Work
Genre: Don't worry, Gen, Intergalactic Bureaucracy, Libraries, Men in Black (Movies) References, No Humans Were Neuralyzed In The Making Of This Fic, Platonic Telepathic Bond, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:27:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26895187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: “Look,” Cassie gasped as she ducked around another corner, hand still clamped tightly around one of Ruya’s. Someone behind them was yelling, deep in the Z stacks, which meant she hadn’t lost them yet. “Look,” she started again, trying not to pant, “don’t you think you could’ve told me about the whole telepathy thing before you high fived me?”
Relationships: Human & Alien They Accidentally Telepathically Bonded To, Original Female Character & Original Female Character
Kudos: 7
Collections: Canon Ball 2020





	How Not To Telepathically Bond With Your Human: A Lived Case Study

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nyyami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyyami/gifts).



“Look,” Cassie gasped as she ducked around another corner, hand still clamped tightly around one of Ruya’s. Someone behind them was yelling, deep in the Z stacks, which meant she hadn’t lost them yet. “Look,” she started again, trying not to pant, “don’t you think you could’ve told me about the whole telepathy thing  _ before _ you high fived me?”

She crashed into the push bar for the south side stairwell and hauled Ruya in behind her, wasting precious seconds by turning back to keep the door from slamming shut. The south stairwell was damp and always smelled like mildew, but it was the fastest way into the basement repository. If she could lose them anywhere, it would be down there. 

_ You don’t have to speak out loud, _ said a petulant voice  _ in her  _ **_head,_ ** which was just as freaky now as it had been the first time, approximately two seconds after the high five and a minute and a half before some big men in plain black suits burst into the staff area of the library. At least then, it had only been the overwhelming feeling of  _ oh shit. _ Now they had progressed to full sentences, apparently.

“It makes me feel better,” Cassie snapped, trying to keep herself from slipping on the damp concrete and sliding down three flights of stairs on her ass. Their footsteps echoed around them, disconcertingly loud. Her arm was starting to hurt from being twisted behind and up, because of course their right hands were stuck together, so Ruya couldn’t just run  _ next _ to her. “It’s  _ weird _ having your voice in my head.”

“My most sincere apologies.” Still petulant, and practically dripping with sarcasm, but at least it was verbal this time. “Can you release my hand yet?”

Cassie tried, but whatever weird magic alien shit that had put Ruya’s voice inside her head wasn’t letting them break physical contact yet either. 

“Nope.” She took the last step too hard, hitting the solid concrete floor instead of another metal stair, and tried not to wince at the pang from her knee. She hit the push bar of the door to the basement with the meat of her bicep, and  _ did _ wince when bounced back. The door didn’t budge. Right, shit, keys. Where were her keys?

She fumbled for the lanyard tucked into her jeans’ pocket with her left hand, trying to hold it with her last two fingers while picking out the key for the repository. Shit, why’d she have to high five Ruya with her dominant hand? That wasn’t even something you  _ thought about, _ normally, but apparently it was a newly crucial consideration in her life. 

Ruya’s free hand came up from behind and held the ring steady enough that Cassie could actually find the right one. She took the assistance, but didn’t say thanks, because she was still mad about the whole telepathy-and-being-stuck-together thing.

This time, the door swung open easily, and Cassie pulled Ruya into the dark expanse of the repository. This was the place where archival materials and books that were in poor condition, but too valuable to weed, went to die. It was still and silent, save for the rough sound of Cassie’s breath in her ears. The emergency lights around the edges of the cavernous room turned the shelves into hulking, squatting shapes, lined up row after row. 

Cassie tested their hands again. She could shift her grip slightly, and did, but it was as if a sort of magnetism was keeping their hands from straying too far apart, and it was  _ deeply _ annoying.

_ We’re okay, _ she told herself, taking deep breaths in an effort to slow her racing heart a bit. There was an old maintenance tunnel that connected the library to the special collections building that hardly anyone knew about, outside of her and Dr. K, and Dr. K was home with her wife today. They could take that, escape the notice of the Men in Black wannabes, and hide out somewhere until this… bond, or whatever, wore off. They would be just fine.

_ Yes, we will, _ Ruya’s voice said, in her  _ head. _

Cassie shrieked and jolted back. She would’ve tipped clean over if Ruya wasn’t standing directly behind her, so instead she hit Ruya’s chest and bounced. She seemed to be doing that a lot, today.

“I told you to stop!” she said, heart racing again. “That’s so—rude!”

She glared as best she could over her shoulder, and Ruya looked down at her, expression blank. The emergency lights threw her face into shadows that shifted as she tilted her head. There was something—strange, about the movement, and Cassie shivered. Ruya said, “Fine.”

That tone of voice didn’t warrant an acknowledgement, so she didn’t give one. Cassie tugged on her hand and began to lead her to the northwest corner. It was still quiet, but she tried to stay aware of her surroundings, or whatever it is she was supposed to do in a situation like this. It seemed a lot easier in action movies. 

“So,” she said, as they passed between the shelves for the humanities backlog that Dr. K still hadn’t started processing, “any idea when the magnet hands will wear off?”

“No.” Cassie gave her a  _ look _ over her shoulder. Ruya sighed, sounding put out, and added, “It’s not like I’ve ever bonded to a human before. And there's no peer reviewed literature on the subject. I checked.”

Cassie stayed quiet for a long moment as they emerged into the large and thankfully  _ empty _ central aisle that ran the length of the room, but Ruya didn’t elaborate. 

Ooo… kay then. What the fuck did that even mean,  _ bonding with a human? _ Was she actually, seriously playing the alien angle? Obviously there was some hinky shit going on, with the whole “telepathic bond” thing, but that could be just a bad trip. Not that Cassie had done anything even remotely recently, and definitely not with the new student ops employee for the library. And  _ definitely _ not at work. 

“Well, what about the Men in Black?” Cassie asked, and received a baffled silence in return. “You know, the secret agent looking dudes? Huge, dark suits, look like they could kill you with one finger? Those dudes?”

“Yes…” Ruya said, in a tone that meant she didn’t follow in the slightest.

“What are they going to do if they  _ catch _ us?” Cassie asked, and she sounded slightly hysterical even to her own ears. She cut through the rows that were piled high with boxes on either side. The strain of having Ruya follow a step behind was definitely starting to make itself known in her shoulder and wrist. “I do  _ not _ need to get my mind wiped or whatever because we got a little over enthusiastic with the workplace bonding.”

“Mind wipe?” Ruya echoed, puzzled. “I’m just in violation of my visa, so—”

Cassie pulled up short so hard that Ruya ran into her back, knocking her forward half a step. 

“Your  _ visa?!” _ she screeched, and that’s when the door to the northwest maintenance tunnel burst open.

“So you’re not going to mind wipe me,” Cassie said, for maybe the third or fourth time. The man across the desk looked very much like he was losing patience with her broken record act. 

“No,” he said, for the third or fourth time, and sighed. He seemed to do that a lot, but maybe that was just Cassie’s influence. He seemed like a nice guy, all in all, and he’d been the one to put that strange, misshapen glove over their hands earlier that unstuck them, so she was grateful to him for that. The glove, though, had also had the unfortunate side effect of scrambling the signal for Ruya’s “human suit,” as she’d called it, and Cassie was having a hard time scrubbing the image of a seven foot tall purple… tree-like figure out of her mind.

His office was big, if utterly devoid of personality. There was a placard on the edge of the desk, but all it said on it was  _ Sr. Community Liaison. _ No name. 

“We’ll have you sign a confidentiality statement, and you’ll be on your way.” She raised a disbelieving eyebrow, and he added, “Pretty much nothing you’ve seen in  _ any  _ movie is accurate. To get that out of the way.”

“Okay, but Ruya said she had a  _ visa,” _ Cassie said, and hoped he could tell how incredibly weird this all was. By the exhausted, unimpressed look on his face, she thought he did. “And you just told me that she’s an alien. From outer space. Pretty sure that’s like, the whole set up for Men in Black.”

Mr. Senior Community Liaison sighed again, and pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“That movie,” he said, through obviously gritted teeth, “is an embarrassment to my entire industry.  _ Please  _ stop bringing it up.”

“But how does the visa system even work?” Cassie continued, mulishly. “Do other planets have embassies here or—”

_ Stars above, _ came Ruya’s voice,  _ forget about the fucking visa. I’m sick of this waiting room. _

As it turned out, the glove hadn’t disrupted the whole telepathy thing. Guess it had been too much to hope for.

Cassie took a leaf out of Mr. Senior Community Liaison’s book, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Now what?” Cassie said, twenty minutes and one signed confidentiality statement later. She and Ruya were standing on the sidewalk outside of a nondescript building clear on the other side of the city from the university. It was going to be so obnoxious, taking the bus all the way back. 

She was finding it hard to look at Ruya, even though her  _ human suit _ was back up and running. There was something about seeing your coworker as a giant purple tree-thing that really put a damper on a burgeoning friendship.

“You’re not going to make this weird, are you?” Ruya asked, and it was so stupid that Cassie forgot about her reservations and gaped at her.

“Wha— _ me?” _ Cassie spluttered. “You’re the one that—” she glanced left and right, but there was no one nearby “—turned into a giant purple tree!”

Ruya stared at her, unimpressed. Cassie was getting that a lot these days.

She sighed. This was so far beyond weird it wasn’t even funny, but from what Mr. Senior Community Liaison had told her about Ruya’s people—the Doltul, he’d called them—bonds didn’t just form willy nilly. It took some sort of connection for them to form. And it took a  _ lot  _ for them to break. She should, y’know, make an effort. Even if she didn’t ask for any of this.

_ Wanna go get coffee? _ She thought, very carefully. She didn’t know exactly what Ruya could and couldn’t hear, but she figured intent had to help, right?  _ Pretty sure the rest of our shift is over, anyway. I’ll explain it to Dr. K tomorrow. _

Ruya smiled, and linked her arm through Cassie’s. Then her voice, brighter than before:  _ Lead the way.  _


End file.
